Collectively they are leading development organisations around the world, focusing on the improving the livelihoods of Ismailis.[2] The Aga Khan’s secular development institutions — such as AKDN and AKRSP — provide services and direction for sustainable development around the world.[14]

The Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development with its affiliates, Tourism Promotion Services, Industrial Promotion Services, and the Aga Khan Agency for Microfinance, seek to strengthen the role of the private sector in developing countries by supporting private sector initiatives in the development process. The fund and the foundation also encourage government policies that foster what the Aga Khan first called an enabling environment of favourable legislative and fiscal structures.

The agencies' common goal is to help the poor achieve a level of self-reliance whereby they are able to plan their own livelihoods and help those even more needy than themselves. To pursue their mandates, AKDN institutions rely on volunteers as well as remunerated professionals.

AKDN focuses on civil society with the Civil Society Programme. A number of organizations are sponsored by the World Bank with the help of partner foundations.[16]

In Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan the Aga Khan Foundation plays a central role in helping the entire village or collection of villages improve their standards of living.[14]

The Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) is striving to help mitigate educational and food scarcity in several disadvantaged East African communities. The AKF has partnered with organizations in rural regions of Kenya and Tanzania to augment their economic capacity. Programs in Kenya have built over 120 dams and small farm reservoirs to help increase water accessibility, along with water pipes for schools and hospitals. Programs in Tanzania have focused on helping to train farmers on sustainable agricultural practices in their harsh and unpredictable climate. Through these programs the AKF hopes to increase agricultural yields and incomes for the neglected rural regions within both countries. .[17]

The AKDN agencies make a long-term commitment to the areas in which they work, guided by the philosophy that a humane, sustainable environment must reflect the choices made by people themselves of how they live and wish to improve their prospects.

AKDN institutions work in close partnership with the world's major national and international aid and development agencies. The AKDN itself is an independent self-governing system of agencies, institutions, and programmes under the leadership of the Ismaili Imamat. One of their sources of support are the Ismaili community with its tradition of philanthropy, voluntary service and self-reliance, and the leadership and material underwriting of the hereditary Imam and Imamat resources.

Highlighting the functions and philosophy of Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN),[1]

"The engagement of the Imamat in development is guided by Islamic ethics, which bridge faith and society. It is on this premise that I established the Aga Khan Development Network. This Network of agencies, known as the AKDN, has long been active in many areas of Asia and Africa to improve the quality of life of all who live there. These areas are home to some of the poorest and most diverse populations in the world."